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Friday, 28 December 2012

The Ultimate Nepalese Cook Book

Some of you may know that many years ago I served in the Army for a while. I was in a Gurkha regiment, whose soldiers are mostly from the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. I remain interested in anything to do with Nepal, so you can imagine my delight when Jane managed to get me this book for Christmas:-

It is a book about Nepalese / Gurkha cookery, written by a man called Pemba Lama, who served in the British Army as a Gurkha chef, and who has subsequently gone on to teach Nepalese and Oriental cookery in the Defence Food Services School, based in Aldershot (about 4 miles from where I live in Fleet).

My memories of Gurkha cookery revolve mainly around the "Dhal Bhat" - a term that means literally "Lentil Rice", but one generally used to mean a complete meal that would normally include not just rice and lentils but also curried meat and vegetables, plus a whole host of side dishes, breads, poppadoms and assorted condiments. It is a term used in a similar way to that in which British people would say "a Curry". Nepalese food is somewhat similar to Indian food, but usually less spicy, since that sort of heat is often delivered by chilli-based side-dishes. Gurkha soldiers are very energetic people and despite their diminutive size can eat vast amounts of food, so portions are large!

In view of the above, I was somewhat surprised to see so many obviously non-Nepalese dishes in Pemba's book. However, he explains that these days Nepalese cuisine is heavily influenced by Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and other oriental styles, simply because Gurkha soldiers have travelled around the world a lot more than was formerly the case, and now want a more varied diet. For example, fish is not widely available in the hills of Nepal, but retired soldiers returning to their homeland are apparently now demanding Sweet-and-Sour Prawns, Battered Cod, and steamed Sea-bream!

However, I'm pleased to say that the book does still include some of the old classics. This is the sort of thing I used to encounter quite frequently - Sherpa Lamb Curry:

The lamb curry would probably have been accompanied by some of this - Curried Dahl Masuri.
[Note: The word for cooked lentils or similar pulses is written in this book as "dahl", but we always used to call it "dhal" - not that it matters, since it sounds the same when you say it aloud! In similar fashion, we always used to call this particular type of dhal "Masoor".]

Now this one is one of our all-time favourites - Alu Dam: Potatoes in a spicy tomatoey sauce. It is a very simple dish, but very tasty too. It was always included as one of the elements of a Gurkha "Tipan Tapan" (a selection of finger-foods served during any special event, such as a Dashera party.)

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The book itself is rather amateurishly produced. For instance there are a couple of places in which a recipe is illustrated with the wrong photo; and there are a few errors in some of the ingredients lists. Sometimes the recipe instructions themselves are incomplete, or leave something to your imagination, so you would have to be careful when making the dishes, or else rely on prior knowledge to fill in the gaps. In a funny sort of way, I find this reassuringly authentic, because this is so typical of the way Gurkhas work. Attention to detail was never their strong point! Also, you should note that there is limited narrative content in this book - it is mostly just the recipes, so you will not learn a huge amount about Nepalese cuisine or culture from it. However, as you can see from my photos above, the book is very extensively illustrated with some smashing photos taken by Tony Jones.

Anyone who likes Indian food, and to a lesser extent anyone who likes Chinese food, will definitely find recipes of interest in this book. The book retails at £14.99, which sounds a bit pricey for a 160-page softbound book, but (and this comment is aimed mainly at the British audience), some of the proceeds from sales of this book (£2 per copy, I believe) go to the Gurkha Welfare Trust, a well-established charity supporting serving and retired British Army Gurkha soldiers and their families, an eminently worthy cause.

If you are interested in acquiring this book, or even just looking at more photos and recipes from it, visit this website:- Griersonpublications.com

21 comments:

Looks to me like a welcome change to the usual book store celebrity chef fodder, look forward to seeing some of the recipes which brings me to a question I have been meaning to ask Mark, how would you and Jane rate your style of cooking in terms of heat from spices on a common supermarket scale of 1 to 3 chillies?

David, it would probably be a 2. We don't go for the "so hot it blows your head off" approach (but then even what the supermarkets rate as a 3 are not really like that), but we also do enjoy a bit of heat. Flavour is more important to us than heat though. Did you read my post about Spanish pork? The combination in that of mild but strongly-favoured paprika with a touch of heat from a few of my "Turkey" chillis was exactly what we like.

Merry Christmas Mark. Sounds interesting. I haven't been to Nepal but would love to one day. I do enjoy the occasional momo though - any recipes in your book? i always wonder what the editors were up to (and I hope it was fun...) when I find recipes with ingredients missing from either the method or the list.

Hi Liz; Yes, the book has 3 momo recipes - plain; with pork/beef; and with vegetables, though I have to say you would probably find them too simple, since you already know a bit about momos! This book is really aimed at the basic level. I agree with you about the editor's role: all the recipes ought really to have been fully tested.

Thank you for such a thoughtful and realistic review of this cookbook. I have wondered whether it was worth getting as I thought all the other reviews I'd read were not from people who really knew the food. It was all about promoting the charity rather than commenting on the actual recipes. So thanks for the decent review. I can't find a list of the recipes anywhere as I'm after two in particular Jhim Jal chicken or lamb and Khatmandu chicken (not masala). Can you tell me if these two types of recipe are included please?

Aha! How exciting. I think your brother Dhansing was Head Clerk, wasn't he? That was when I was Adjutant of 1/7GR. I recall him as a very tactful, diplomatic man, who always steered me in the right direction! :) Where do you live now? Is it in the UK?

Dhanprasad was indeed the Head Clerk at some point. Narsing was the Head Clerk at Lye Moon, 2/7GR!! Dhanprasad lives in Dharan, Narsing sadly passed away a few years ago. I live in Folkestone, home to RGR.

I think I must remember Narsing from before the formation of 2/7GR then. Perhaps he was a Sgt or WO in 1st Bn and was transferred to the new 2nd? I'm sad to hear that he is no longer with us. So young! Presumably you are retired now, yourself?

Well retired and enjoying it. Have spent the last few years assisting Gurkha veterans settle in the community, in immigration and welfare/benefits matters....keeps me occupied and rewarded with genuine Nepalese dhall/bhaat!! I recall Lt Col Gregory (OC Records) and family having 'bhaat' on Xmas day in Singapore, 1965!! Hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas.

Glad to hear that things are good with you, Om. I was thinking a lot about my Army days this morning, because I was in Aldershot, where these days there is a big Nepalese community. Nice to have "talked" with you like this. The internet is very good for these chance encounters. Someone once wrote a comment on my blog saying that they had lived in a house in Ipoh, Malaysia, in which my family lived when I was very young. Namaste, sathi!